What is Ceph used for?

Ceph is a scalable, distributed storage system that provides object, block and file storage from a single software-defined platform. It is a good fit for building a private cloud storage backend and software-defined storage for Kubernetes clusters.

Yes. Ceph is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at ceph/ceph and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. Ceph is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host Ceph?

Yes. Ceph can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Ceph an alternative to?

Ceph is an open-source alternative to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage and Backblaze B2. Other open-source alternatives to Amazon S3 include SeaweedFS and RustFS.

Is Ceph actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Ceph was on 2 October 2026. The project has 17k stars on GitHub.

Ceph: open-source alternative to Amazon S3

About Ceph

Ceph is a distributed storage platform that offers object, block and file storage from one software-defined system. It is designed to scale across many servers and provide highly available storage, and it is written mainly in C++.

Repository topics show the range of protocols and features it covers: S3-compatible object storage, block storage, a POSIX distributed file system with FUSE access, protocols such as NFS, SMB, iSCSI and NVMe over Fabrics, and replication and erasure coding for data protection. The topics also mention Kubernetes and HDFS.

Most of Ceph is dual-licensed under the LGPL version 2.1 or 3.0, with some code in the public domain or under BSD-style licenses, which is why the repository lists the license as 'Other'. The documentation uses CC-BY-SA-3.0, and contributions need a Signed-off-by line without copyright assignment. Ceph is deployed on your own hardware or cloud infrastructure.

Key features

Unified object, block and file storage
S3-compatible object storage
POSIX distributed file system
Replication and erasure coding
NFS, SMB and iSCSI access
Scales across many servers

Good fit for

→Building a private cloud storage backend
→Software-defined storage for Kubernetes clusters

Built with: C++; Kubernetes
Tags: storage; distributed-storage; software-defined-storage; object-storage; s3; block-storage; file-system; cloud-storage

Ceph: questions and answers

What is Ceph used for?: Ceph is a scalable, distributed storage system that provides object, block and file storage from a single software-defined platform. It is a good fit for building a private cloud storage backend and software-defined storage for Kubernetes clusters.
Is Ceph open source?: Yes. Ceph is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at ceph/ceph and is written mainly in C++.
Is Ceph free?: Yes. Ceph is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host Ceph?: Yes. Ceph can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Ceph an alternative to?: Ceph is an open-source alternative to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage and Backblaze B2. Other open-source alternatives to Amazon S3 include SeaweedFS and RustFS.
Is Ceph actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Ceph was on 2 October 2026. The project has 17k stars on GitHub.